


Avengers Endgame: Missing Scenes

by mothmage



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Endgame, Character Death but like...it's post-snap so..., F/F, Gen, Missing Scenes, theres 100 fics like this but i wanted more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:47:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23811073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothmage/pseuds/mothmage
Summary: “That was some stunt out there,” Rogers says after a moment. “We really owe you one.”Carol shrugs. “Let’s bring everyone back and call it even.”He smiles a little. “Deal.”There’s a pause and then -“So, are you, like, a god, or...?” he trails off.She looks at him, at Captain fucking America, for a minute, too stunned to really say anything. Maria would never let her live this down. Eventually, she says, “I’m from Louisiana.”Some missing scenes in Avengers Endgame! Carol-centric
Relationships: Carol Danvers & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Carol Danvers & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers & Natasha Romanoff, Carol Danvers & Steve Rogers, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

Carol’s in a fight halfway across the universe when it happens. She swings, but her fist goes through empty air, making her stumble forward. The guy had just turned into...ash?

 _Did I do that?_ She wonders, looking at her hands.

She hears a shout and looks up to see more; people are just disappearing where they stand. She turns and it’s...everywhere. People everywhere are disintegrating.

_What in the ....?_

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.

Fury’s pager. Oh god. _Earth_.

Panic like she’s never felt before runs down her spine. She doesn’t even check the pager before she’s calling Maria on the flip phone Monica had finally convinced her to get. It rings far too many times.

“Maria?! Maria!”

“Carol? Baby, what’s -“

She sags with relief to hear her voice. Maria’s safe. Maybe Fury was paging about something else. “Oh, thank god I thought – something’s happening”

“What do you mean?” Before she can start to explain, Maria says, “Wait, Carol, I feel really weird.”

_No - no no -_

“Wait, Maria, just – wait,” she begs, “I’m on my way, just -“

“Carol?!” she sounds panicked. Then there’s a clatter, like the phone fell to the floor.

“Maria? Maria! Maria!!”

No, no she can’t - _Monica_. Carol hangs up, her fingers shaking, and calls Monica. She picks up on the third ring.

“Monica! Thank god - what’s going-”

“It’s not. Monica, she just...” The voice isn’t one Carol recognizes, a coworker probably.

She feels like she can’t breathe. “She’s -?”

Silence. Then, “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but I - I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh god. Oh no,” Carol sobs out. “This isn’t fair. This isn’t happening.”

She’s about to hang up when she thinks of the poor woman on the phone, feeling just as lost as she is. “Look, find your family, friends, whatever. I don’t know what’s going on, but - “

“Yeah, I - yeah, thanks.”

She flips the phone closed, trying not to think of how Monica groans every time, says she needs to update her tech. She flies faster than she’s ever flown, reaches earth in record-breaking time. But it’s still too late.

She lands outside their home and can tell, immediately, that it’s empty. She walks in, completely numb, not even crying anymore. The screen door creaks. She meant to fix that last time. Maria kept saying she would get around it, but Carol insisted she would do it. There hadn’t been time before she’d left. There’d been an emergency. She'd left with hardly a goodbye.

That emergency seems like _nothing_ compared to what’s going on now. Carol doesn’t even know what to do, but her feet lead her to their bedroom, so she falls on the bed, stares at the ceiling. She starts crying again.

After what must be a long time, she comes back to the present and realizes her pager is still going off. She gets up and dries her tears, shakes out her limbs, then takes off. She goes first to Fury’s office, but he isn’t there. He doesn’t answer her phone call, either, so she tracks the pager’s signal to Avengers tower. She’s heard of the Avengers, seen some of their files, but she’s never gotten involved. She’s regretting that, just a little, when she walks in and they turn to her with guards raised.

She tries to match the energy. “Where’s Fury?”

The blonde woman looks at her appraisingly, but doesn’t seem inclined to answer. Carol thinks she recognizes her – Romanoff, maybe? She isn’t sure.

Then, “Carol? Carol Danvers?”

She startles. That’s a voice she hasn’t heard in a while. “Rhodey?” Her face splits into as big a smile as she can manage. “Man, is it good to see you.” She goes over and pulls him into a hug.

He holds her tight for a minute, then pushes her away to say, “I thought you were dead.”

She shrugs, not quite meeting his eyes, and laughs a little. “It didn’t stick.”

“Does Maria -“ he stops, seeing her face. “Oh god...Carol, I’m sorry.”

“We’re gonna fix it.” She quickly turns away, before she can start to cry again, and looks on the Avengers with a bright smile. It wilts when she really takes stock of them. “Is this all that’s left?”

Maybe-Romanoff steps forward. “There were some on Titan, but we haven’t been able to contact them since.”

Carol nods, short and quick. “I’ll go,” she says, already heading for the door.

The guy with the glasses – Dr. Banner? – interjects. “I’m sorry, just - who are you, exactly?”

She smirks. “I’m Captain Marvel.”

Banner just keeps making that face, like nothing has been cleared up. Rhodey says, “Danvers and I go way back. We can trust her.”

“Thanks, Rhodes.” To the group, she says, “I’ll get your people. If anything else happens...you have my pager,” she adds with a little grin.

Banner shakes his head and asks, “Do you even have a ship?”

“Oh,” she says, laughing just a bit. “I don’t need one.” Her helmet melts into place just before she blasts off, leaving behind a heatwave and a shower of sparks.

“That’s new,” she hears Rhodey say. “I did not know she could do that.”

They're not on Titan, but they didn't manage to get far from it. Their ship is in bad shape when she finds them.

She retracts her helmet and gets their attention, trying to show that she's a friend. They let her in through the airlock and she looks around, stunned.

“And you’ve been stuck like this how long?”

“21 days 6 hours 47 minutes,” says the cyborg.

She doesn’t even try to hide the shock on her face. She doesn’t know how they managed to survive so long. “You’re the only ones left?”

The man - Stark - looks away. The cyborg gives a short nod.

“Right. Well, hold on to something,” Carol says. “I’ll give you a boost.”

It turns out that the engine is too trashed for even Carol to fix, so she ends up _pushing_ the ship back to earth.

The Avengers are there to greet them when they land, as well as a woman who must be with Stark. Carol looks away from their reunion, trying to push down the bitterness in the back of her throat. There’s no sense to it, but she can’t help thinking that it isn’t fair. After a moment, she heads inside the tower, leaving the group behind.

She had planned to go into the war room and start making plans, but she finds herself crumbling in the hallway just outside it. She slides down the wall and pulls out her cell phone. The background is an old picture from Monica’s college graduation. The small screen doesn’t allow for much detail, but it makes Carol’s heart ache anyway.

She hears footsteps and shuts the phone with a _clack_ , looking up.

“Can I sit here?” It’s Captain America.

She nods, gesturing to the floor beside her. “Be my guest.”

“That was some stunt out there,” he says after a moment. “We really owe you one.”

She shrugs. “Let’s bring everyone back and call it even.”

He smiles a little. “Deal.”

There’s a pause and then -

“So, are you, like, a god, or...?” he trails off.

She looks at him, at _Captain fucking America_ , for a minute, too stunned to really say anything. Maria would never let her live this down. Eventually, she says, “I’m from Louisiana.”

His brow furrows a bit, but he just says, “Oh, right. How do you know Rhodes?”

“We were both in the Air Force, back in the day. We ran in a lot of the same circles,” she says. Then, with a sly smile, “You, know, you were a pretty big deal back then, too. We were never sure how much of the legend was just fiction, though. Guess it wasn’t just US propaganda, huh?”

He scoffs. “The serum is just about the only part of those comics that _is_ true, to be honest.” He sounds bitter.

“Well, I always did think Captain America sounded like kind of a dick,” she says, only half teasing. She sticks out a hand. “I’m Carol Danvers.”

He shakes it with a wry smile. “Steve Rogers. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She shudders. “Ugh, don’t call me ma’am. You’re probably the only one here who’s actually older than me.”

He laughs, and it’s a good sound. “Force of habit. You kids have no manners these days.”

She laughs, then stands and offers him a hand. “Can I help you across the street, gramps?”

He grins and takes it. “That’s more like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been playing in my head on loop every night, so I wrote it out in hopes that it would stop pestering me and that someone might also have been itching to read it!  
> I haven't written anything else for this, but I'm leaving it as incomplete, just in case. If there's anything specific you'd want, drop it in the comments!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve killed Thanos, but what the fuck happens now?

When Thor chops Thanos’s head off, Carol can’t help but hope that everything will have reversed itself by the time they get back to earth. 

It hasn’t, of course. 

They all knew it wouldn’t work like that. But it’s so easy to hope. 

She finds herself on the roof of Avengers Tower, absolutely defeated. The satisfaction of seeing Thanos decapitated doesn’t last long - it‘s quickly replaced by an emptiness that comes with knowing that the battle is over, but her family is still gone. The stones, destroyed….

She would laugh, if she could. What the fuck are they supposed to do now? 

She feels someone step onto the roof before she hears them make any noise, and turns her head.

“Hey,” Rhodey says. 

“Hey.”

He sits down. They’re silent for a while. 

“I never did ask what’s up with the new legs,” Carol asks, nodding towards them. 

He makes a face like he’s trying to hold back a grimace. “I fell. Really far.”

She doesn’t say anything for a bit. “Broken?”

“Paralyzed.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “It happened. And now I look like I stepped out of a comic book, too, so I got that going for me.”

She cracks a smile. It only hurts a little bit. “Don’t be modest, you’ve always been a hero.”

“Maybe not a superhero, though,” Rhodes laughs. “What’s up with you, anyway, huh? You die and come back to life as a lightbulb?”

She makes a fist, watches it burn blue and white. “Lawson - she made the planes that Maria and I used to test, back in the day. She was messing around with the tesseract. It, uh…” she thinks for a second. “I blew up an engine and woke up like this. But then I was abducted by aliens, lost my memory, the whole deal,” she adds. “Really, it’s an awful story.”

He tilts his head. “You got back, though.”

Her smile fades. “Yeah. I got back.”

If he notices her sudden mood change, he doesn’t comment on it. “We’ll figure something out, you know.”

She nods. “We better.”

The next few weeks make it even more apparent that they’re totally clueless. Sure, they’ve got the greatest minds of the age on their side, but no one even knows where to  _ start _ without the stones. 

Carol can barely handle the ups and downs. One minute it’s hopeless, they’re giving up; the next, they might have figured something out. Then someone finds a hole in the plan, some reason it can’t work, and they’re back to square one. 

It’s after one such failed attempt that Carol just cracks. She walks out of the war room and is flying away before anyone can say anything else to raise or crash her hopes. 

She goes home. 

Where else would she go?

It doesn’t feel right. Like the house itself is just waiting for Maria to return. 

She can’t bring herself to touch anything inside, but she spends some time with the planes and her bike, getting them back in tip-top shape. They go into more permanent storage after that, covered with cloth and locked away from the elements. 

Then she fixes the squeaky screen door. It opens quieter than it did when it was brand new. 

She cleans the whole house after that, very carefully replacing everything in the same spot when she’s done. She doesn’t cry when she finds the box of Monica’s grade school projects, or when she sees the most recent photo of the three of them, a selfie with a funny filter, magneted on the fridge. 

She does cry when the house phone rings and it’s Monica’s landlord, asking for next of kin. 

“Speaking.” Her voice is watery. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” says the voice on the other end. It doesn’t sound it. “Are you planning on keeping the apartment? We can have the lease transferred to your name.”

Carol has to put down the phone before she snaps it in half. She can hear the voice on the other end repeat the request. 

After far too long, she’s able to pick the phone back up. “Sorry, yes. Transfer the lease to me. Can you do it through the mail?”

“We have the secondary address listed as…”

She listens, then, “That’s correct. Just post it all, please. Thanks.” She hangs up before the voice can say anything else. 

She remembers that apartment. Remembers when they helped her move in. It was Monica’s first  _ real _ apartment, with a grown-up budget and a settled job. Seems like so long ago, now. 

She sags onto the breakfast table, falling into the chair before she’s even thought about it. “God, what am I doing?”

She’s still sitting like that, head down on folded arms, when her suit’s comm beeps. She manages to pick her head up and looks with semi-bleary eyes at it. 

_ Incoming Call: Romanoff _

She accepts the call and a holographic Natasha appears above her wrist. 

She’s frowning. “You okay? You’ve been gone a couple days.”

Carol shrugs. “I don’t live in Avengers Tower. I went home.”

“We need you.”

She almost laughs. “For what? What are we actually doing? I’m tired of getting my hopes up just to fail again. I’m out.” 

She hangs up before Natasha can get another word in. 

_ This whole thing is so fucking exhausting, _ she thinks. 

It’s nice to sleep in their bed again, but it makes her cry, too. 

It’s the best sleep she’s had in weeks. 

Eventually, she runs out of things to fix and starts getting restless. It hasn’t been a week, yet, but she’s itching to do something. 

She’s out tinkering with her bike, when she hears a scream. A gunshot. 

The dude is out before he knows what hit him, and their neighbors are looking at her with wide eyes. The glowing hands might have been a tad bit overkill. 

She looks at their kitchen door, the one with the busted lock. “Want me to fix that?”

She does, then she goes around and reinforces all the locks in the house. Then in her own house. 

The neighbors call the police at some point, but they don’t mention her, so she ignores most of it. It sounds like there’s been a lot of people like that, lately. Opportunists thinking they can make a quick buck amidst all the chaos. 

Carol finishes up the locks, tells her neighbors to stay safe and, as an afterthought, asks them to keep an eye out for suspicious people near Maria’s planes or her house. Then she’s off. 

She takes her bike, which feels good. Flying is great, but it’s just not the same. She’s not sure exactly how long she’s out there, protecting the streets and letting out some pent-up anger as she does, but it’s long enough that she ignores 3 more calls from Natasha. 

When she’s had enough and finally heads back to Avengers Tower, she’s got a new haircut and a little less pessimism. 

Natasha doesn’t comment when she walks in, helmet under her arm, just tilts her head to acknowledge her presence. 

“Good to have you back, Captain,” Rogers says. 

She fixes him with a grin and claps him on the shoulder. “Good to be back, Captain. So, what’d I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do be writing tho.....again, if there’s anything you want to see, drop it in the comments!

**Author's Note:**

> This has been playing in my head on loop every night, so I wrote it out in hopes that it would stop pestering me and that someone might also have been itching to read it!  
> I haven't written anything else for this, but I'm leaving it as incomplete, just in case. If there's anything specific you'd want, drop it in the comments!


End file.
